Demystifying the cocoa sector in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire

This major study by the Royal Tropical Institute aims to contribute to the cocoa sector’s body of knowledge and provide a solid evidence base to test common assumptions and beliefs.

The research covers issues such as household demographics, food security and nutrition, and crop choices and crop diversification. Specific to cocoa, the study investigates why households grow cocoa, and analyses the major aspects of cocoa production and marketing. Household wealth, income and poverty are also assessed, and further disaggregated in a cluster analysis. The study also looks at intra-household dynamics which are brought together in a gender chapter.

Fieldwork was carried out in the cocoa growing regions of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in late 2016 and early 2017. A random sample of approximately 1500 households surveys were collected in each country. This was complemented by 37 focus group discussions in each country.

To advance the sector’s access to data and knowledge, the researchers have made the dataset available for download the KIT page. The KIT encourages other researchers, governments, companies and NGOs to make use of it in their own programmes and policy development.

The study was released in August 2018 – due to the large volume the chapters were released weekly from this date onwards.